Economy & Trade, Europe, Headlines, Labour

LABOUR-EU: No Flood From the East, Only a Heavy Trickle

Stefania Bianchi

BRUSSELS, Aug 11 2005 (IPS) - The enlargement of the European Union in May 2004 has not led to the feared floodgate of cheap labour from new member states seeking jobs in the West, according to a new study by a civil rights watchdog.

The report ‘Who is afraid of the enlarged European Union?’ released Wednesday by the European Citizen Action Service (ECAS) says inflows of workers from new member states such as Poland are "manageable" and have brought "economic benefits" to those countries that fully opened their labour markets to new members. ECAS offers advice on lobbying, fundraising and defending citizen rights within the European Union (EU),

Ten members states – Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Slovakia, Slovenia and Poland – joined the EU last year. At the time there was much scaremongering about an influx of workers to old member states, with many fearing that the new EU citizens would flood the job market in their countries.

"The scaremongers who had predicted a large influx of cheap labour from central and eastern Europe have been proved wrong," ECAS director Tony Venables told media representatives Wednesday. "There is still an enormous gap between public perceptions of enlargement and what is really happening."

Fears of the ‘unknown’ mean that enlargement is seen as a controversial issue and "the new member states still have to combat the stereotypes, one of which is the flooding of the Western labour market with a cheap Eastern workforce," the report says.

The study, which analyses official data from 20 out of 25 EU countries, shows that the level of migration from new member states to the old ones was well below 1 percent of the labour force.

Ireland, Sweden and Britain were the only three states to open their labour markets fully to migrants from the 10 new member states. Other countries, such as France and Germany, which have high unemployment, put restrictions on the right to work for several years to protect their labour markets.

ECAS says that Poland, the largest new member state, has the most nationals abroad. Poles make up the biggest number of eastern workers in Britain (98,235) and in Ireland (40,000).

In Germany too, which has imposed a seven-year transitional period before free movement is allowed, Poles are the most numerous, with 216,575 seasonal workers and almost 20,000 contractual workers registered in the first half of 2004.

Under EU rules citizens are free to settle and work anywhere in the bloc, but the ex-communist newcomers have been forced to accept restrictions on free labour movement for up to seven years.

The European Commission, the EU executive, will recommend next year whether the period should be shortened, but the decision to open labour markets rests with each national government.

Although there has not been the feared flood of eastern European workers, ECAS says the lack of working restrictions in Britain, Sweden and Ireland has led to a sharp increase in the numbers of workers coming to these countries, compared to pre-enlargement days.

In Britain, some 175,000 workers have registered for work – much higher than the 5,000 to 10,000 predicted by the British government. In Ireland, 85,000 social security numbers have been allocated to migrants from accession countries.

The study warns that old EU members that have placed restrictions risk an expansion of the black labour market where people work illegally and pay no taxes.

"The scale of the black market is hard to estimate," said Julianna Traser, author of the report. He said anecdotal evidence suggests that labour market restrictions did not prevent people from coming to a country.

But many people in the "old" EU blame enlargement for high unemployment and stagnant economic growth. In France, "the Polish plumber" has become a metaphor for all the fears about cheap eastern labour.

Venables says that because it is so difficult for a Polish worker to get employed in France, the worker becomes self-employed, and charges less.

ECAS also warns that many new member states are battling with a "youth drain" as well-qualified young people leave for jobs in western Europe.

"Between 3 and 5 percent of young new member states nationals who have completed a third-level education tend to leave their home countries for better wage prospects. Sending countries (such as Poland or Hungary) fear not simply a brain drain but rather a youth drain," the report says.